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NET

Hybrid Multihop Partition-Based Clustering Routing Protocol for WSNs

Chaoming Wang(王超明)1,2 ,Yuan Zhang(张远)1,2 ,Xuewen Wang(王雪文)1,2 , and Zhiyong Zhang(张志
勇)1,2
1 School of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China
2 Microelectronics Technique Research Institute of Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China
* Member, IEEE
** Senior Member, IEEE

Manuscript received June 7, 2017; revised June 21, 2017; accepted July 6, 2017. Date of publication July 12, 2017; date of current version July 12, 2017.

Abstract—Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have great prospect in the application of partition parameter observation,
however, the high correlation with applications makes wireless sensor networks working in specific environments requiring
specific work patterns. In this paper, a Hybrid Multihop Partition-Based Clustering routing protocol (HMPBC) is proposed
which can fit specific environment, meet interests and needs, balance network load and prolong the network lifetime. In
HMPBC, both the single-chain structure within cluster and the cluster heads selection depending on residual energy are
operated by self-organization, and the region minimum spanning tree structure among clusters is enablished by base station.
The proposed protocol is simulated in MATLAB with the network model of 200mx200m, 400 nodes. Simulation results show
that HMPBC has 33.31% and 39.70% longer lifetime, smaller fluctuations of average energy consumption of each node per
round, more precise measurement of zone parameters than LEACH-MLOR and EEHMCS.

Index Terms—WSNs, partition management, energy, single-chain, region minimum spanning tree

I. INTRODUCTION
Limited resources are available for wireless sensor networks
(WSNs) as they are unlike unified communication protocol
platforms [1]. Routing technology is committed to prolonging
the network lifetime and balancing network load, including
improving forwarding efficiency, reducing power consumption
and optimizing network structure. Clustering routing protocols
are one of the hottest research in routing protocols that address
these challenges [2].
The Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH)
is a popular clustering routing protocol [3]. However, in recent
years, many protocols have emerged as the optimized algorithms
based on LEACH [4]–[8]. The enhancements include modified
cluster-heads (CHs) election, network topology and network
expansion. Distributed Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering
(DHAC) [9] algorithm is a distributed bottom-up clustering
algorithm. A Mobile sink Improved Energy-Efficient PEGASIS-
Based routing protocol (MIEEPB) [10] is presented in order
to achieve small chains and decrease load of CHs, in which
CHs election is processed according to the residual energy
and distance from Base Station (BS). Recently, an anycast
tree-based routing protocol [11] which has no control messages
is developed, because each node only stores information of
the next node in the routing table. An Optimized Zone-based
Energy-Efficient routing Protocol (OZEEP) [12] optimizes the
clustering and the CHs selection process by using the Genetic
Fuzzy System (GFS) in two steps. A Novel Energy Aware
Hierarchical Cluster-based (NEAHC) routing protocol designed
Corresponding author: Chaoming Wang (e-mail: wcm12548@outlook.com).
Associate Editor: Alan Smithee.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LSENS.2017.0000000
in [13] also improves the threshold scheme for selecting CHs. An
algorithm named Energy Efficient Hybrid Multi-hop Clustering
Scheme (EEHMCS) [14] is designed for the divided area when
BS is situated far away from the deployment region, in which
optimum CHs are selected by BS considering remaining energy,
a number of neighbours, and minimum separation distance
between the CHs. EEHMCS has the same method of data
transmission as LEACH within cluster, and uses a number of
CHs as intermediate relay nodes among clusters which saves
the node energy by reducing the overall distance for a single
transmission, however, in which the nodes transmit with CHs
directly within cluster so that nodes can consume much energy
and the routing path between clusters is established by CHs
with heavy load.
After all, we need to study and design a specific routing
algorithm for specific environment applications and interest
requirements. We envisioned such an environment: a monitoring
region which is unable or difficult to access, is divided into a
number of small monitoring zones where sensor nodes can only
be prethrown, which can collect the parameter information
of the small zones in detail. We designed a Hybrid Multihop
Partition-Based Clustering routing protocol (HMPBC) for this
environment. In this scheme the observed area is divided into a
number of zones, which a single-chain structure in the cluster is
used to prolong the network lifetime and the region minimum
spanning tree algorithm is adopted for communication among
CHs. In order to reduce the number of forwarding in information
interaction and lower energy consumption, we don’t select CHs
before transmission, and do CHs in the transmission based on
the comparison of the remaining energy, and then the nodes
with much remaining energy become the CHs in the current
round.

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II. DESCRIPTION OF THE ALGORITHM PROCESS
Before we present HMPBC, the features of this network
model are as follows:
(1) Sensor nodes are distributed in a square area M×M.
(2) All sensor nodes are identical, immovable after de-
ployment and resource constrained, the base station is also
immovable but unconstrained.
(3) Each node has a unique identity number, and each small
zone node has another distinct zone identity number. Ordinary
nodes can only establish communication if they have the same
zone identity number, otherwise, communication cannot be set
up. Cluster heads with different zone identity numbers can
build communication.
(4) Each node can compute the distance to another node
based on the signal strength of received message.
(5) Every node can adjust the magnitude of the transmitted
power according to the distance.
(6) The maximum emission power of the node can guarantee
communication with all nodes (including base station) in the
network.
The schematic diagram of network topology is shown as Fig.
1. According to the area of each partition and the number
of all nodes, the number of corresponding sensors per zone is
calculated to ensure the sensor density of every monitoring
partition keep same. We treat all nodes in each small region
as a cluster. In cluster, the starting node of the single chain
structure routing table in the first round is pre-selected from its
partition nodes before deployment, and the selection is random.
Fig. 1. The schematic diagram of network topology: random 400-node
topology for a 200m×200m.
A. Preparation and analysis
Now we discuss the communication mechanism within the
cluster and the communication algorithm among clusters. There
are two common routing optimization strategies: the minimum
spanning tree and the minimum distance tree for multi-hop
networks with fewer nodes [15]. In clustering sensor networks,
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VOL. 1, NO. 3, JULY 2017
base station and cluster heads assume most of the computing,
storage and energy consumption resources. And there is a great
distance between adjacent cluster heads in the network, as well
as the distance between cluster heads and base station. It has no
impact on the performance of the entire network, the complex
algorithm computation and network structure generation are
completed by the base station. But it will reduce the lifetime
of the CHs if these are accomplished by CHs with resource-
limited. The short path from the base station to other CHs is
founded by the region minimum spanning tree algorithm in this
paper. Compared to the entire network area, there is a little
smaller region and fewer nodes within the cluster. Therefore,
we adopt a network structure similar to PEGASIS protocol
[4], [5]. A starting node uses greedy algorithm to select the
nearest neighbor node. As the analogy, all nodes come into
being a chain to achieve the communication path. Using chain-
structure within cluster and communication with data fusion
reduces CHs energy consumption effectively.
Fig. 2. The sketch map of routing table update and cluster-head
selection.
B. Communication within the cluster and cluster-heads se-
lection
Dynamic updating of CHs is the key to prolong network
lifetime and balance network load. It can ensure reliable data
transmission next round once the current cluster head fails.
The specific process is as follows:
The first round of the process In Fig. 2(a), the routing
table: c1→c2→c3→c4 is generated by the preselected starting
node c1 according to greedy algorithm. The end node c4 of
the chain sends the routing table to c3,c2,c1 in terms of the
routing table order. Then the data acquired by nodes will also
be transmitted from c1 to c4. c4 receives the data information
from c3 with aggregated, and eventually transfers it to the base
station after data fusion. The node c4 is the cluster head at
the first round.
Routing table update and cluster-heads selection The
cluster head sends the requirement information to the end
node of the chain by routing table order when it receives the
interest demand from the base station. Then the process of data
transmission and cluster heads selection begin immediately. In
Fig. 2(b), once the end node c1 receives the demand information,
it requests communication with the next node c2 in the routing
table. c1 sends the data d1 and the left energy information
e1 to c2 after the request succeeds. c2 compares the residual
energy e1 sent by c1 with its own rest energy e2, if e2>e1, c2
combines the data d1 and the data collected by itself into a
new data d2, and stores it in c2. The new routing table c1→c2
comes into existence. In Fig. 2(c), the node c3 is requested by
c2 to communicate each other. After the request is successful,
c3 receives the fused data d2 and the residual energy e2 from
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c2, and compares e2 with its own rest energy e3. If e3<e2, the
new data d3, which merges data d2 with data captured by c3,
will come about in c3 and be transmitted to c2. c2 stores the
new routing table, c3→ c1→c2. In Fig. 2(d), c2 communicates
with c4, the cluster head in the last round, and sends the data
d3 and its updated residual energy e2 to c4. As in the above
case, if e4<e2,the node c4 will fuse data d3 and its own data
to be a new data d4. Moreover, d4 will be sent to the node c2.
The new routing path, c4→c3→c1→c2, will be stored in c2. At
the moment, c2 become the cluster head this round, and sends
the generated new routing table to each node in the cluster in
the order of the new routing path. Fig. 3. Energy consumption for 200m×200m network with 400 nodes.
We have got that the transmission information include the
data collected by nodes and rest energy themselves. The CHs the networks are 1531, 1461, 2041. Our protocol had 33.31%
selection considers the only one parameter: the rest energy of and 39.70% better lifetime than LEACH-MLOR and EEHMCS
the nodes, and occurred over the process of data transmission. respectively.
The result within the cluster is the highest energy node which
becomes the cluster head. Each node in the cluster will store the
routing table including all nodes within the cluster. A routing
table need to be regenerated when a new node joins. A node
will skip the node that is out of contract, and communicate
directly with the next node of the routing table.

C. Communications between clusters

Establishing the minimum spanning tree routing topology
requires the base station to obtain information of the entire
network structure. The distance between nodes can be calcu-
lated according to the signal strength of the received message
in the network, and thus the base station can obtain the cluster
network topology. Because of the periodic change of cluster
heads, the minimum spanning tree path among cluster heads
also needs to be established in each round. Eventually we set
up the minimum spanning tree path among regions. Once the
path is formed at the first round, it will be stored in every
region and all nodes in it. The regional routing table established
in this way is resulting from region minimum spanning tree
algorithm for specific environment. Obviously, the generated
path is not optimal.
III. SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS
We measure the performance of HMPBC by performing
comparative simulations of LEACH-MLOR (A multi-level
LEACH protocol based on opportunistic routing) and EEHMCS
at MATLAB. LEACH-MLOR establishes levels for all nodes
by broadcasting some level message from the base station and
has the similar routing scheme to LEACH in each level region.
400 sensor nodes are deployed in a area, which including
20 zones of 40m×50m, of dimension 200m×200m. Each zone
has the same nodes number, which are distributed randomly.
The energy model implemented in the three protocols is the
same. For analyzing and comparing the performance of HMPBC
with LEACH-MLOR and EEHMCS, we consider the following
metrics: network lifetime, average energy consumption of each
node per round and distribution of failure nodes. In Fig. 3, the
protocol presented has more durable network lifetime than the
other protocols. Along the 3000 rounds simulation of LEACH-
MLOR, EEHMCS and HMPBC, the termination rounds of
Fig. 4. Average energy consumption of each node per round for
200m×200m network with 400 nodes.
The average energy consumption of each node in every
period is shown in Fig. 4. It can be calculated as,
Er (i)
E av e (i) = (1)
Nr (i)
where, Er (i) is the total energy consumption of all nodes
in the round i, Nr (i) is the number of active nodes in the
round i. It shows HMPBC proposed in this paper has further
stable average energy consumption and the preponderance in
balancing network load in Fig. 4.
The distribution diagrams of failure nodes when the network
appears batch dead nodes is shown in Fig. 5. There is the
drawing of the nodes in the network, which is divided into
20 regions in Fig. 5(a), blue dots indicate alive nodes, ’∗’
indicates cluster head, ’×’ indicates base station, red dots
indicate failure nodes. The three scatter diagrams of disabled
nodes of the networks, building on LEACH-MLOR, EEHMCS
and the protocol this paper, are depicted in Fig. 5(b) (c)
(d) respectively. The simulation rounds are 1150, 1350, 1420.
As indicated in Fig. 5, the area where the failure node first
appears is the marginal region and low-grade of the network
in LEACH-MLOR protocol. The zone of fault nodes begins to
appear in the near-zone (BS to nodes distance is lower than a
threshold) in EEHMCS, because the nodes in near-zone as relay
nodes take the heavy load. However, the incapable nodes are
scattered randomly in various regions in the protocol HMPBC,
which is the key to partition management. Because we need

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Fig. 5. Distribution diagrams of failure nodes when the network
appeared batch dead nodes: (a) the network is divided into 20 regions,
(b) failure nodes distribution in LEACH-MLOR, (c) failure nodes
distribution in EEHMCS, and (d) failure nodes distribution in HMPBC.
to access to the information in each region constantly, that is,
there are surviving nodes in the region. The accuracy of data
information in these zones will reduce significantly when the
inactive nodes occurs in the edge (LEACH-MLOR) and the
near-zone (EEHMCS).
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we present a Hybrid Multihop Partition-Based
Clustering routing protocol (HMPBC). The main contributions
in this paper are as follows, 1) to meet interests and needs for
technical application environment by implementing partition
management, 2) to balance network load by simulating energy-
based cluster-head selection mechanism, 3) to reduce the
number of forwarding by selecting cluster-heads in the process
of data transmission, and 4) to decrease energy consumption
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VOL. 1, NO. 3, JULY 2017
by using an improved single-chain structure within cluster and
a region minimum spanning tree structure among clusters.
The experimental results show that HMPBC has significant
improvements in all these performances with the characters of
partition management, energy-based cluster-heads selection,
parallel mechanism, and modified network structure, while
comparing with the protocols of LEACH-MLOR and EEHMCS.
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